Marvelous Jinchuriki
by zetca
Summary: Nine times a Jinchuriki met a Marvel.


**Afghanistan**

'There was an explosion in Afghanistan, and it was all my fault.'

That was the thought running through Tony's mind as he came to, half buried in sand and clad in the remains of his makeshift armour. After escaping the Ten-Rings in a hail of bullets, missiles and a thirty-foot fireball, he'd crashed into a sand dune some distance away and knocked himself out. Shaking his head to clear the fuzziness at the edge of his vision, he set to trying to dig himself out. "Well, at least I don't have to pay for property damage this time."

"If that's your first thought on waking up buried in sand, I truly don't want to know how many places you've damaged irrevocably," said a gravelly voice, making Tony's attention snap round. It came from a man with short red hair and piercing green eyes with deep black marks surrounding them. Above his left eyebrow was a symbol that seemed to be carved into the skin. He wore a long blood red trench coat, black trousers and toeless boots, with a brown gourd attached to a brown leather belt over his coat.

"Well, it depends whether you count the places that just did repairs, shut down or learned to live with it. Pretty sure I'm not allowed back into Idaho without a police escort handcuffed to me after what happened last time, considering Lake Stark is where 80 miles of trees used to be. At least I don't want to come back here anytime soon, the hospitality is just terrible." Like always, his mouth motors on automatic while he assesses the newcomer. If nothing else he's fairly sure that the new guy isn't part of the Ten-Rings: partly because of his clothes (seriously, toeless boots, what the hell!); but mostly because of the lack of a gun being pointed at him when he's vulnerable.

The redhead smirked. "Fascinating," he drawled. "I'm sure your hosts will be absolutely distraught to hear your humble opinion. Moving on, did you plan on getting out of that hole anytime soon? Because you may want to get up before anyone else decides to investigate the explosion, since most people around here are of the same disposition as your previous entertainers, Mr Stark."

Tony's blood ran cold and he hurriedly clambered out of his hole. Dusting himself down, he asked, "Who are you? How do you know me?"

The man chuckled. His gravelly voice made it an unnerving sound to hear. "My name is Gaara, Mr Stark: and trust me, it wasn't hard to guess who you are. There aren't exactly many Americans who wear suits in this part of the world. You're in Kunar, which if you didn't know is in Afghanistan: and before you ask it's the 26th of April; meaning most of your military has been shoving your picture in the faces of almost every civilian they found for the last three months. Most of them will probably have your face haunting their dreams for the rest of their lives." Gaara pointed a finger in what seemed like a random direction. "If you head west you have the best chance of finding a town with those pictures. Your military does regular sweeps out there too, if you can tear yourself away from your narcissism for long enough."

"Okay, first: don't make that sound like such a hardship. I've been haunting the dreams of women for years, except the reality always surpasses their wildest fantasies. Second: Why are you helping me? I don't know you and you don't exactly sound like one of my biggest fans."

Gaara sobered up. "You're right. I'm not a fan of yours, for several reasons. Partly because you profit from the pain and misery of others, selling you bombs and your guns. Mostly though, because you don't seem to realise, or care about the suffering that you have helped bring to this region and many others. However, I'm helping you for a couple of reasons. The sooner you are gone from this country; the less chance there is for you to make weapons for those terrorists, who will use them on innocents." At this, Gaara stared straight into Tony's eyes. "More to the point, you remind me of myself when I was a child. Bringing pain to those around you, loving only yourself, and asserting your own existence by conquering others. Granted my conquests were a lot more fatal but still, the comparison holds. If the words and actions of a good man could change me, a borderline psychopath, then what could they do for you?"

Tony flinched, and Gaara's eyes narrowed," I see you know what I mean. I became the leader of my countries military, gained overall command over a joint army, and helped bring peace to my land at the age of 17. What could you accomplish, if you dare try?"

Gaara walked past Tony and stopped, "It's time you showed the world the real Tony Stark. I'll be watching."

Tony spun, but all he saw was a swirl of sand and an open desert. "You'd better be," he muttered, before turning and walking in the direction he was shown. As he walked he kept his eyes focused on the horizon, never noticing as his footprints vanished behind him.

 **So, I'm still here. This has been floating around my head for the last seven years; but with work, two new laptops and a complete system wipe I never got around to typing it up. Annoyingly, this was written in the space of an hour, but since that was 1 am I may have an excuse. This is sort of a successor to Counting Biju, one-shots again but not using the character histories I made up. For anyone interested in my other stories, the only one I've got plans for is Legend Reborn. I rejigged the plan slightly, and I'll be rewriting the whole shebang. It is the only long story I've got planned though.**

 **I still own nothing but a laptop and the clothes on my back.**


End file.
